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In a field not far from the Gleneagles golf course, Highlanders in full regalia train to fight. It’s a sunny day in central Scotland. A collection of tents, campfires and animals dot the open grasslands, and men dressed in clan tartans do a shoddy job of lining into formation. They’re a collection of farmers and common soldiers, not a trained military ready to face off against bayonets with much more than pitchforks and a Highland charge.

After spending half of Season 2 in Paris (shot on location in Prague and in studio sound stages), Outlander — which was just renewed for both Season 3 and Season 4 by Starz — has returned to its Scottish roots. Claire and Jamie Fraser headed home to Lallybroch in last week’s “The Fox’s Lair” after an attempt to change the course of Charles Stuart’s Jacobite uprising that can only be described as “disastrous.”

Now the Frasers have joined with the Scotsmen who have volunteered to be a part of the Jacobite army that fights the British. Claire is cursed with the knowledge of how devastating the Jacobites’ defeat is on Scottish culture. Her instinct is for she and her husband to flee the impending war. Jamie, by contrast, wants to stand and fight to save his people.

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Things are just beginning to ramp up.

The crew of Outlander has missed shooting on location in Scotland, but after a week of terrible rains that turned the massive farm they’re shooting on into a muddy mess, they welcome the sunlight and balmy weather. It’s the perfect weather for Sam Heughan’s Jamie Fraser to train these wannabe soldiers how to use the weapons they’ll be fighting the British with.

“It feels like things are just beginning to ramp up,” Heughan told me later in his trailer after he’d wrapped for the day, sipping a glass of Laphroaig, his favorite whisky. “The first half of the season there’s a lot of talk about this great battle, about Culloden, about how we know this whole people and culture are doomed. Ultimately Jamie realizes that he can’t [stop Charles Stuart from raising the army]. He has to join them and has to help.”

In person, Heughan is open and charming, as quick to joke and small talk as he is to earnestly discuss the show. But across a shaded field, surrounded by silent crew members observing him train Highlander soldiers how to battle the Redcoats’ muskets, he becomes Jamie Fraser. He takes on a stronger Scottish lilt than his usual tones, voice echoing through the valley as he barks commands. Moving through the motions of disarming the enemy, he becomes a Scottish hero of the people.

Caitriona Balfe as Claire Randall Fraser

Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser

Jamie has had a difficult Season 2, but back on his home turf, it’s clear he’s regained his confidence. He and his wife Claire are fighting to change the future by aiming to defeat the British at the upcoming Battle on Culloden Moor, and Heughan plays Jamie fully confident that Charles Stuart’s army can win.

“I think that’s why he throws himself into training these people,” he explained. “Best thing to do, if they are going to have to fight, is to learn to be a modern army. That’s what he’s doing here. He’s training them to be more than just Highland warriors.”

A Familiar Face Returns

Adding a wrinkle to Jamie’s plan to train the Scottish volunteers is that a familiar face has come to challenge him for command. I duck into a small barn to avoid appearing on camera as Jamie greets his uncle Dougal — the character’s first appearance in Season 2, and actor Graham McTavish’s big return to the series.

The first words out of Dougal’s mouth after he says “hello” to Jamie are an acknowledgment of his nephew’s rape at the hands of Black Jack Randall in Season 1. Dougal clearly believes his arrival means he’s in charge, and his disrespect of Jamie is intentional. He just doesn’t know how much James Fraser has changed since their last encounter.

“He’s not the person that they thought he was,” McTavish later told me. “Suddenly Dougal’s on the back foot, which is a very interesting place.”

Graham McTavish as Dougal MacKenzie and Grant O’Rourke as Rupert MacKenzie in Outlander

Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser and Graham McTavish as Dougal MacKenzie in Outlander

That day of filming ends up being the first 10 or so minutes of Sunday’s episode, “Je Suis Prest.” Dougal reunites with the Frasers and Murtagh over and over as the camera shoots them from multiple angles. Duncan Lacroix trains the recruits for several takes, repeatedly yelling “what are you laughing at, bastard!” in one extra’s face. Heughan walks through training sequences with the volunteers as the stunt coordinator advises him between takes.

As the day wears on, some of the extras sit down in the Highlander camp out of the camera’s view. This day of filming is just setup for the big sequences yet to come: the battles at Prestonpans and, later, Culloden. During one break, I heard one extra turn to another and ask, “You looking forward to the battle stuff? The way I’m imagining it in my head, I hope it comes out.”

That enthusiasm for the fight sequences was a repeated refrain on set. Outlander is building up to a fictional recreation of two battles key to Scotland’s history. Heughan, who learned about Prestonpans and Culloden repeatedly during school, was excited to bring these key scenes to life. But he also was aware how important it is that Outlander get them right.

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In Scotland, history’s always around you somewhere.

“Bonnie Prince Charlie, Robert the Bruce, William Wallace: these are all stories that you grew up being surrounded by. In Scotland, history’s always around you somewhere. The place names and the music and the people, but it’s mostly the landscape. You walk around and you go, ‘Oh, there’s the site,’” Heughan said. “We’re not far from Prestonpans. It’s all there. When we come through Stirling, there’s a great battlefield just there. It’s just like, it’s all there. It feels great to be given that gift of bringing it to the screen.”

Bringing History to Life

Adding authenticity to the depiction of these scenes is the fact that many of the extras are played by members of the Clanranald Trust, an educational organization that strives to bring awareness of Scottish culture through recreations of the past. The men from Clanranald would arrive at 4 a.m. each day of filming, sleep together in a big church they built and work together like a clan. That dynamic translated to the screen. Their real-life hierarchy appears in the show when the leader of Clanranald plays the man who helps Jamie train the recruits in several sequences.

“It is all good fun, and we’re having a great time doing it, but you have to remember that you’re respecting a group of people that were real and that this really happened,” McTavish said. “So, yes, it’s very alive for us particularly, because we’re doing this. You want to make sure, for [the Clanranald extras] as well, that you’re treating it with respect and you have a responsibility to the memory that those people went through.”

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You have to remember that you’re respecting a group of people that were real.

In real life, the Battle of Culloden was disastrous for the Jacobites who fought in it. Not only was it a devastating defeat, but the uprising caused a crackdown on Highlander culture; those who rebelled were put on trial for high treason and many were killed, Britain made a point to absorb Scotland even more, and wearing Highland tartans was outlawed. This was a key turning point for the nation, the repercussions of which are still felt today.

Outlander is bringing fiction and magic into a hugely significant moment in Scotland’s history. Claire and Jamie are trying to change fate, but the Starz series has already made a point to let viewers know the Frasers are poised for failure: theopening scene of Season 2 shows Claire back in the 20th century learning that the British won at Culloden. But don’t expect the end of the season to be predictable just because the outcome seems to be unchangeable.

“Ultimately the show has always been about relationships. Not only is that the climax of history, but it’s also the climax of the relationships that are happening at the time. It’s all doomed, and we can’t stop history from happening,” Heughan said of the upcoming finale. “[Season 2] certainly has a climax. [Showrunner Ron Moore] has also got some surprises.”

Outlander airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.

Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at@Terri_Schwartz.

Grab the whiskey and prepare to celebrate—Outlander will be back for a third and fourth season!Starz announced today that the epic romance of Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) will continue with a third and fourth season spanning the third book in Diana Gabaldon’sOutlander series, Voyager as well Drums of Autumn. Season three follows the couple through new adventures in all new countries…and that’s about all we can say about that without spoiling the end of season two.

“Outlander is like nothing seen before on television. From its depiction of a truly powerful female lead character, to the devastating decimation of the Highlander way of life, to what is a rarely seen genuine and timeless love story, it is a show that not only transports the viewer, but inspires the passion and admiration of its fans,” Chris Albrecht, CEO of Starz, said in a statement. “On this 25th anniversary of the publication of the first book in the US, we are thrilled and honored to be able to continue the story that began with author Diana Gabaldon, and is brought to life by the incredibly talented Ronald D. Moore. There are no better storytellers for Outlander than this team, both in front and behind the camera.”

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“The world of Jamie and Claire is expansive and emotionally complex. The audience has rewarded Outlander with their praise and loyalty, and we know we will deliver the best seasons yet in the years ahead,” Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, presidents of US programming and production at Sony Pictures Television, said in a joint statement. “Starz has been an incredible partner and has truly helped shape this into one of the most iconic premiere series on the air today.”Executive producer Ronald D. Moore told E! News back in January that he had just rereadVoyager in preparation for the third season, which he says will be quite different from the current politically-fueled second season, calling it “much more of an adventure tale.”

The second season premiere on April 9 was Starz’ highest-rated season premiere ever, with almost 1.5 million viewers. That’s more than double last year’s series premiere, and more viewers than any season one episode brought in.

Outlander airs Saturdays 9 p.m. on Starz.

Photos

In honor of WORLD OUTLANDER DAY,

let’s go back to where this love story really cemented itself in the hearts of Outlander fans, especially Jamie and Claire fans and book fans in particular. Since the first announcement of plans to adapt the book series to television, book fans had long anticipated the wedding episode. It has become the single most iconic scene of the TV series to date and one of the most beloved of Diana Gabaldon’s book series.

The magic in the story is usually subtle, but potent, and not the main focus, but the magic associated with the wedding vow deserves some attention. Blood is a powerful symbolism, and sometimes even has mystical powers. The blood oath makes use of this to make a commitment that cannot be broken.

Blood spilling is a potent force in the working of magic, and in some mythologies certain types of blood are deemed more powerful than others. Some consider the blood of royalty, the blood of a special line (Fraser, the Fraser Prophesy, which book readers will recall), the caster’s own blood (Jamie and Claire), and virgin’s blood (Jamie) to be most powerful.

In many ways their wedding ceremony represents the traditions of their time, but their blood vow may be described as something between a binding traditional handfasting and an initiation. It is a blood bond, a spiritual blending, a binding of their souls, not just to God but to one another, and not just for this lifetime, but forevermore. Not until death-do-us-part, but for all lifetimes to come. Jamie knew what he was doing and knew its significance, but Claire did not.

Would Claire have agreed to the marriage if she had known about the blood vow? Probably. Although she had just gone through the stones at Craig Na Dun and had been mysteriously transported back in time 200 years, she was hesitant to embrace the faery mythology generally accepted by the Highlanders at the time. Looking back, Claire confesses that she wouldn’t have changed a thing. That, my friends, is a commitment.

Fans of Starz’s time-travel drama “Outlander” may be surprised that no one asked Sam Heughan to take his shirt off during the audition process.

That may sound reasonable, but as viewers know, Heughan spends much of his onscreen time flashing some serious skin—and as it turns out, the series lucked out with the Scot when it comes to physiques.

“I’ve been in many auditions thinking, God, do I have to take my shirt off? It’s quite a physical role…,” Heughan says while his co-star—and onscreen nemesis—Tobias Menzies chuckles across the table. “It’s quite exposing, actually. But no, they didn’t [ask]. And at the time, I was keeping quite fit. So it was all right!”

For the legions of fans who have turned Heughan and Menzies into the thinking woman’s sex symbols, it turned out to be a bit more than all right. Fiercely protective fans of Diana Gabaldon’s series of novels detailing the time-traveling adventures of World War II–era nurse Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe), her 1940s husband, Frank (Menzies), the dashing 18th-century Highlander hunk she ends up marrying, Jamie (Heughan), and Frank’s sadistic ancestor Capt. Jack Randall (Menzies again), almost immediately relaxed when the series premiered in the summer of 2014. Here were Jamie and Black Jack and Claire brought to life in ways that very few adaptations manage. And though the show quickly made a name for itself for its vivid sex scenes—the website Vulture recently heralded the show as “the best sex on television”—what is less frequently discussed is the high-wire act its actors must perform to ground the material.

“It’s some of the hardest stuff to sell, I think, in acting,” Menzies says. “The time traveler element of the story is the most esoteric aspect. And if you wink, you’re kind of done. The air will deflate out of it.”

Both Menzies and Heughan are serious about their performances on “Outlander,” down to questioning dialogue or storylines.

“There were some quite overt direct speeches in the novel, which can be quite bumpy,” Menzies says. “An example is Claire’s ‘Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.’ Which obviously all the fans are obsessed with. But I know Cat spent a lot of time going, ‘I don’t know how to make this work for me.’ She really wrestled with it. And that’s part of the adaptation process.”

Heughan agrees, saying that an open-door policy on the part of the writers has been “really fruitful, I think. You are the one person who is looking only at that journey, that one character. The writers are looking at the structure and different characters and how they all kind of interact. So it’s always an interesting thing to stand up for.”

And Heughan and Balfe were both concerned about Jamie and Claire’s relationship at the beginning of Season 2. The last episodes of Season 1 found them struggling to reconnect after Jamie’s rape at the hands of Capt. Jack, and the finale saw the pair sailing to Paris. But when Heughan and Balfe read the first scripts for the new season, they went to the writers.

“It felt like [Jamie and Claire] got over what happened in Season 1 and there wasn’t enough of a hangover,” Heughan recalls. “And we went back to them and actually, they completely reworked it. It was great to see [showrunner] Ron [Moore] going, ‘OK, we can delay that and move this forward here.’ It’s great fun to be able to have that influence on the script!”

The first few episodes of Season 2 were difficult for both men: Menzies returns for the first time as Frank after spending most of the previous season in Capt. Jack’s shoes, and Jamie moves from the outdoors to the lavish world of Paris and all the foppery and frills that entails.

Outlander Recap: The Old Fox

As Outlander tells us again and again, so much depends on democracy. Any system of rule by which a king passes power to his firstborn son is inherently broken and ill-fated. People must earn the right to lead, not inherit it.

Since the audience already buys into that notion — it’s the premise of Western-style government, after all — any grandstanding on the issue could seem to be moot. But Diana Gabaldon’s stories manage to underline it without being didactic. She reminds us why it’s so important to let people determine their own destinies. The Bonnie Prince Charlie is a fool, but he’s the heir of King James, so scores of men will soon go to their deaths fighting for him. Young Simon may also be a fool, but he’s the heir of Jamie’s wily grandfather, Lord Simon Lovat, so dozens of men may also go to their deaths fighting under him.

Meanwhile Jamie feels compelled to confess to Claire the shameful fact that his father was illegitimate, born of a dalliance between the Old Fox and a servant. He makes the strategic choice to disclose this while getting undressed, as though anyone could think straight while Sam Heughan takes off his shirt. Even if they had been talking at a conference table, though, Claire wouldn’t care that Jamie’s father was a bastard; she doesn’t believe that the circumstances of a person’s birth determine that person’s worthiness any more than their gender should. In that latter opinion, at least, she is joined by Jamie, but not many others.
We may not be explicitly reminded of it often, but Outlander secures us to the past, when women were roughly valued on par with cattle. We take it for granted that Jamie respects his wife’s opinions — that Jamie respects his wife — but his behavior is remarkable in context. Lord Lovat exhibits the norm: casual misogyny, and a belief that ladies are okay as decoration as long as they stay silent. That’s why Claire has to inform Laoghaire that any woman has more to offer a man than her body. The girl might never have another chance to learn.

How does Laoghaire end up crossing paths with our heroes again? How, in other words, does this episode turn into one big family reunion? The Frasers have returned from Paris, grateful for a reprieve from trying to scheme against the Jacobites, but they soon discover that Scotland is no picnic, either. An idyllic rural existence with Janet and her loving family is not in the cards. Prince Charles has declared his intention of leading a rebellion against the British, and he has taken the liberty of adding Jamie’s name to the list of Scottish clans supporting his cause. In essence, Jamie has been drafted. Since he can’t avoid the fight, he reasons to Claire, he may as well try to win it. So off Jamie goes to woo his crafty grandsire, a man he’s only met once, for the Old Fox’s wealth and men.

However, his uncle Colum MacKenzie is on hand to thwart him. Colum doesn’t need Claire’s knowledge of history to conclude that this third Jacobite uprising, still lacking in real support from France or other allies, won’t end well, so he urges Lord Lovat to join the MacKenzies in pledging to remain neutral. Lord Lovat is willing to do whatever’s in his best interest; he’s the type of win-at-all-costs man who would, on a reality show, snarl that he’s not there to make friends. He’s also the type to casually suggest he might rape (or have his men rape) his own grandson’s wife, which would even raise eyebrows on Survivor. Jamie must protect Claire, once again, by turning her into La Dame Blanche. Apparently, fear of White Ladies extends to both sides of the sea.

Like many power-hungry men, the superstitious Lord Lovat fears what he cannot control. He demands to hear how his own seer believes the Jacobite uprising will end, though considering his temper, it’s no wonder she is reluctant to share her answer (the chopping block) with him. He also seems to believe Claire when she pretends to have a vision of an executioner, which she concocts to keep Jamie from signing over Lallybroch to his grandpa in exchange for Lord Lovat’s troops.

Of course, Claire is convincing. Maybe all these years of life as a time-traveler have, in a way, turned her into the White Lady. When Laoghaire gets down on her knees and begs forgiveness, Claire certainly has no trouble assuming the same role of judge and jury she played last week for King Louis. An abject Laoghaire insists that she has changed and Claire doesn’t give even half a damn. Later, she relents, but only to use Laoghaire for her own ends: The girl looks like a Vermeer, and Simple Simon is smitten with her. Prompted by Claire, Laoghaire encourages the boy to join the fight.

In the end, that’s what does the trick. Although Lord Lovat signs the MacKenzie’s statement of neutrality, he sends his men with his son. He seems to think if he plays both sides, he can avoid the axe. But we can still see the executioner waiting behind him, as surely as we can see the executioner waiting behind the Scottish clans who saddle up for this brave, foolhardy endeavor. There’s no way that Prince Charlie can defeat the British, and deep down, Claire and Jamie both know it. But they want to go down fighting. They’re little-d democrats: They have faith in free will, not in fate; in bravery, not birth order. They believe in the ability of individuals to make a difference. Even though you know they’re doomed, you can’t help but root for them as the ride off to the battlefield.

“There’s a very good book about the character. [He was a] very, very extraordinary, but not very likable man, which was interesting. But I’m a bit wary of research in that sense. I remember when I worked for the BBC and did ‘Middlemarch,’ and I played a character in that, and I was very, very faithful to the way in which George Eliott described him. And one of the things she described was the fact that he had long pauses between words, and so I took that with me on to set, and after a bit, the director said to me, ‘Clive, you’re going to have to speak quicker than that…’ So, it can be interesting and it can be very misleading. In the end, your bible is the script — the adaptation in the case of ‘Middlemarch,’ and the script, which is a mixture/compilation of history and not history and that’s what you have to pay attention to, really,” he said. “Obviously there are hints from the way in which the character is described not in the dialogue, and how people talk about him, as well as the history of the character, but it’s really about the script.”

Asked about the costume process for “Outlander,” Clive said his Lord Lovat look was “done very beautifully,” and aged to fit the character’s lifestyle.

“They broke it down quite a lot because he didn’t look after himself properly,” the actor said. “And I had a pair of spectacularly wonderful decayed teeth, which in his day would’ve been made of wood. He had no teeth, but he had wooden false teeth, so rather than having to do that, I went and had a fitting for some ghastly brown teeth, which must have made him extremely unattractive.”

Filmed on the show’s set in Scotland, “The Fox’s Lair” episode reunited Clive with actors he’d worked with before, including Gary Lewis, who returned in the episode as Colum MacKenzie, and Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie. Clive and Sam were both in UK docuseries “The Wild West” in the mid 2000s.

In Saturday night’s “Outlander” episode, the two actors had several interesting scenes opposite each other, including a private exchange where Lord Lovat asked for Jamie’s family home — Lallybroch — in exchange for his men joining the Jacobite cause, a request Jamie answered by calling into question whether the two were actually blood relatives.

“That particular scene was done quite late in the day and just flowed very easily,” Clive said.

“I’d worked with him very briefly,” he continued of his previous project with Sam. “We did a documentary about an American cowboy gangster — Jesse James, and I was [Sheriff Brady], a very famous cowboy sheriff character, and there was a group of us [who] did it over a week in Almeria, in Spain, up in the mountains where they shot one of the Clint Eastwood cowboy movies. So I briefly knew him about 8, 9 years before when he was very young. So we had a certain ease between us. It was good. Very much a kind of older man/younger man vibe and it was very easy working with him because it – not quickly, but it fell into place, the director gave us some notes, but it played itself very well. Beautifully written scene.”

Another scene Clive enjoyed filming was the moment when, just as it seems Jamie is going to sign away Lallybroch, Claire (Caitriona Balfe), pretends she has a vision.

“It was actually quite electrifying, the moment when palpably, everybody in the room believed what she was doing and what she was saying,” he said. “It was a pretty good moment.”

Claire’s “vision,” though, didn’t get Jamie’s grandsire to agree to join the rebellion. Instead, he signed a declaration to stay neutral. It was only later, after his heir Simon was on his way with Jamie and Claire to begin fighting preparations that Lovat showed his cards. He rode up and confirmed he was secretly taking part in helping them, giving them men, but via the document he signed, giving the appearance he was remaining neutral.

“The horse riding was great fun. I cantered down hill for the first time in my life, arriving, which was great fun,” he said of the memorable scene. “We cantered off afterwards quite quickly.”

Asked if he has an interested in coming back to the show, if the opportunity were to come up, Clive said he would welcome it.

“I had a terrific time. I’d be delighted to go back. I rather think it would be a one off, although I am one of the central character’s grandfather, so depends how it goes down, I guess,” he said. “I think in the book he only appears the once. Whether they’ve done all the things that he does in the book, I’m not sure, but we’ll find out.”